Alcohol related cognitive impairments in patients with and without cirrhosis

IntroductionUp to 80 % of patients with alcohol use disorders (AUD) display cognitive impairments. Some studies suggested that cognitive functions could be worsened by hepatic damage, particularly cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is widespread in patients with AUD, indeed one third of them develop cirrhosis during their lifetime (Zhang et al. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2022). Currently, patients treated for cirrhosis do not benefit from a systematic assessment of alcohol related cognitive impairments. The Brief Screening Tool for Alcohol-Related Neuropsychological Impairments (BEARNI) is a specific tool developed to screening for those impairments.ObjectivesThe primary objective of this study was to compare BEARNI mean scores in a group of AUD patients with (AUD/C+) or without cirrhosis (AUD/C-).MethodsWe conducted a prospective, monocentric study at the Amiens University Hospital. Subjects were consecutively recruited from the hepato-gastroenterology department of Amiens University hospital and from the local substance abuse treatment department. All patients were assessed using BEARNI test, demographical (age, gender, number of years of scholarship), and clinical variables, using Child-Pugh scores and Alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT). The BEARNI mean score in the AUD/C+ group was compared to the mean score in the AUD/C- group using an Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with age and educational level as covariate. Between group comparisons were performed using post hoc analysis with Tukey HSD test.Results107 patients (75 AUD/C+, 32 AUD/C-) were included in this study. AUD/C- patients were significantly younger than AUD/C+ patients (respectively, 45.5 ± 6.8 vs 59.3 ± 9.3; p